As sources of toxic waste and other contaminants of air, soil and water are located and regulated, everyday activities of people are increasingly affected. The heretofore simple task of changing the oil in one's automobile, now leads to a chain of activities designed to prevent the used filter product and its residue of metal-contaminated oil from reentering the environment. Systems have been developed to collect, process and dispose of the filters and their residues, e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,842 discloses such a system. The final disposition of the segregated components of the oil filters, ranging from canisters to bases to O-ring seals and the paper plastic or like fibrous or particulate mass of media forming the filter elements is controlled to protect air, land and water. The filter media can find reuse as fuel or be deposited in landfills if in low contaminant condition including the substantial removal of all residual oil therefrom, so that heavy metals carried by the oil are absent from the filter element.